When I was young, around the age of 6, I discovered zucchini pancakes. My Mom, trying to feed a family on the budget of a newly opened small business, was not about to let summer’s over-abundance of these long green squash go to waist. She started by slicing and steaming […]

It’s winter and I wanted soup. Lots and lots of soup. (Admittedly, I want lots and lots of soup a lot of the time: asparagus and sorrel, fresh and clean in spring, bright tomato, sweet zucchini and roasted pepper in the summer, rich pumpkin in fall and hearty bowlsful in […]

Each summer, as a child, we would pack up and head to Newport, Rhode Island for two weeks. We stayed in simple beach cottages with exposed framing, worn carpets and tiny kitchens fitted with a tag sale mishmash of plates, bowls and flatware. My babci, my Polish grandmother, and my […]

“They have farm camp?!” I asked my friend Pamela Hess. “That is the coolest thing ever!” To my complete delight, she invited me to do a cooking class with the campers at Arcadia, a cool, non-profit farm – where Pamela is the Executive Director – dedicated to reconnecting us with […]

Norman Rockwell drew an illustration for the Mass Mutual insurance company titled “Cookout.” As mothers and children set the picnic table, fathers hover around the grill. Nowhere is there any food. But imagine, give me your very best Family Feud guess as to what will appear on those quintessential American […]

Aside from Sylvester’s famous expletive, I thought succotash was one of those weird, dated American farm dishes where lots of unappealing vegetables were cooked down, in large batches, into an equally unappealing mush that inspired fond, parochial memories, while no one actually wanted to eat it. I was wrong. Liz […]

We grew up eating a lot of corn. A summer staple, we always ate it the way God made it – fresh from the cob. A quick roll in a stick of salted butter was the only addition. So, a little short on experience, I hatched a plan to serve […]

My Dad did his PhD thesis on corn. At night my Mom typed out page after page, over 100, on a typewriter. Corn expertise was highly regarded in our home. Dad taught us that all vegetables have sugars which, once harvested, convert to starch. This happens faster in some vegetables […]

Corn and Zucchini Pasta’s inclusion in Chez Panisse Vegetables is more of a concept than a recipe. Alice provides ingredients and technique leaving the vagaries of measurements and time to the individual cook. This is recipe trading grandmother style. “What do you mean measurements? You can just feel when you’ve […]